1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to primary cultured adipocytes for gene therapy, to which a foreign gene(s) has been transferred.
2. Background Art
Current gene therapies (Toyooka et al., Folia Pharmacol. Jpn., 116:158-162 (2000)) can be classified into two groups: (1) methods of transferring therapeutic genes into patients by directly administering viral vectors, naked plasmids, or such that encode the gene (in vivo), and (2) methods of temporarily removing cells from patients, transferring a gene to these cells, and then returning these cells to the patient (ex vivo).
In the in vivo methods, major problems remain to be solved, such as transfer efficiency, continuous expression, and selective gene transfer to target cells. Ex vivo methods, on the other hand, can potentially overcome these problems. The majority of examples of ex vivo methods have been performed using blood-system cells (peripheral lymphocytes and bone marrow cells), since their collection and transplantation is relatively easy and the burden on patients is reduced (Tani et al., Saishin Igaku, 56:258-267 (2001)). With regards to cells other than blood-system cells, methods that transfer genes to hepatocytes and then return these cells to the patient have been carried out (Raper, S. E. et al., Cell Transplant, 2(5):381-400 (1993)), but most of these methods focus on the recovery, maintenance, and enhancement of the function of the transfected cells themselves.